Cacti and Succulents from Seeds Booklet Produced by The Amateurs’ Digest

Virtual Marina with BB the talking parrot in their greenhouse.

Foreword (2023)

Anderson’s taxonomy is apparently controversial. Bill Hendricks of Klyn Nurseries was outraged by some of the changes made, and criticized Marina for following Anderson’s new approach. Hendricks would therefore approve of the first edition of Marina’s booklet, which did not use Anderson’s taxonomy. Marina’s article further below is an attempt, in The Amateurs’ Digest, to bring her booklet up-to-date with Anderson.

The matter of Anderson’s taxonomy needs to be debated in the forums. Members of THE CACTOPHILE CLUB are encouraged to thoroughly discuss it before embarking on creating their encyclopedic dictionary of cacti and other succulents, the CACTOPEDIA.

A 2004 Version Has Been Recovered!

Cover: Cacti and Succulents from Seed (Help Booklet) 2004

A minor triumph. Caci & Succulents from Seeds is the first of Marina’s paper “Help Booklets” that I could find. It was listed as being in a university library, so I wrote to ask about the cost of a scan. Universities don’t usually offer copying or scanning services to outsiders, so I prefaced my request with the story of how Marina’s life’s work had been lost in the hands of the B.C. public “trustee.” Amazingly, the university replied that they had spoken with their boss and decided to take the little booklet from their collection and send it to me. It arrived in the mail with white stickers over the old library call numbers. Many thanks to the Library of the University of Guelph in Ontario for Marina’s heritage.

This is a great booklet. It is a compilation of articles by various authors on propagating cacti and other succulents from seed; and even how to obtain seeds from some of your own plants. You’ll find it linked under “HELP BOOKLETS” in the sidebar.

However, this handbook is an updated version published in January 2004, and though I’m Marina’s daughter, I’m no cactus expert, I’m betting this 2004 edition has been updated using Anderson’s taxonomy. Nonetheless, it remains an important find.

After scanning the black and white brochure in colour (to get the best detail), converting it to grayscale, converting it to PDF, merging the 64 individual PDF files (including the covers), and uploading it to OCR, the brochure came to a whopping 99 MB. It was then compressed to a still whopping 17 MB, so give it a minute to load.

This is an updated version from 2004.

Below is Marina’s article explaining changes to the help booklet first published before she adopted Anderson’s taxonomy.

Edward Anderson’s book The Cactus Family (2001) published in 2002, contains many changes to the cactus family.

Our above-mentioned booklet was published earlier than this new publication. For those who have already purchased our seeds booklet, the following outlines the changes affecting our booklet.

Revisions made June 9, 2002:

Page 1 – Old Name Parodia grossei	Page 1 – New Name Parodia schumanniana
Page 4 – Old Name Parodia laui	Page 4 – New Name Parodia hausteiniana
Page 8 – Old Name Mammillaria heyderi hemispherica	Page 8 – New Name Mammillaria heyderi subsp. hemispherica
Page 10 – Old Name Rebutia pulchella	Page 10 – New Name This species not listed

Page 20

This list replaces original one:
Echinopsis (Setiechinopsis) mirabilis
Epithelantha micromeris
Frailea pygmaea (pulcherimma)
Gymnocalycium saglionis
Leuchtenbergia principis
Lophophora diffusa
Lophophora williamsii
Mammillaria bocasana
Mammillaria columbiana
Mammillaria densispina
Mammillaria glassii
Mammillaria prolifera
Mammillaria thornberi subsp. yaquensis (yaquensis)
Neolloydia conoidea
Notocactus leninghausii (some say Parodia)
Parodia scopa subsp. succinea (Notocactus succineus)
Parodia mammulosa subsp submammulosus (Notocactus submammulosus)
Rebutia fiebrigii (jujuyana)
Rebutia fiebrigii (muscula)
Rebutia miniscula
Rebutia miniscula (grandiflora)
Rebutia minuscula (violaciflora)
Rebutia pygmea
Rebutia pseudodeminuta (sanguinea)sanguinea
Rebutia senilis
Rebutia spegazziniana (fusca)
Rebutia spinosissima (hoffmannii)
Strombocactus disciformis
Thelocactus setispinus

Page 21 – Old Name Lobivia ‘Pink Lady’	Page 21 – New Name Echinopsis ‘Pink Lady’
Page 30 – Old Name Turbinicarpus gracilis	Page 30 – New Name Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus subsp. Gracilis
Turbinicarpus polaski	Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus
Turbinicarpus krainzianus var minimus	Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele v minimus
Turbinicarpus flaviflorus	Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus subsp. Flaviflorus
Turbinicarpus klinkerianus	Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus subsp.klinkerianus
Page 34 – Old Name	Page 34 – New Name
Echinocereus caespitosus	Echinocereus reichenbachii
Echinocereus baileyi	Echinocereus reichenbachii subsp. baileyi
Echinocereus fitchii	Echinocereus reichenbachii subsp. fitchii
Echinocereus perbellus	Echinocereus reichenbachii subsp. perbellus
Echinocereus melanocentrus	Echinocereus reichenbachii subsp. perbellus
Echinocactus ingens	Echinocactus platyacanthus
Page 35 – Old Name Horridocacti Lobivias	Page 35 – New Name Eriosyce Echinopsis
Page 36 – Old Name Neoporterias Stenocereus Thelocactus Thelocactus hexaedrophorus v. lloydii	Page 36 – New Name Eriosyce Pachycereus Eriosyce Eriocyse hexaedrophorus v. lloydii
Page 37 – Old Name Lobiviopsis hybrid	Page 37 – New Name Echinopsis hybrid? Lobiviopsis not listed
Page 38 – Old Name Pyrrhocacti Ritterocereus Setiechinopsis mirabilis Submatucana Thrixanthocerei Trichocereus	Page 38 – New Name Eriosyce Stenocereus Echinopsis mirabilis Matucana Espostoa Echinopsis
Page 39 – Old Name Weingartia neocumingii Weingartia lanata	Page 39 – New Name Rebutia neocumingii Rebutia lanata Both photos of these last two cacti, identified by a knowledgeable plant dealer do not match current descriptions of those cacti as named.